I just watched Chocolat today. I know, I’m a little behind the times. But here’s my impression of it anyways.

Definitely better than I expected it to be. I’d heard that it was a love story or something of the sort, so I was not looknig forward to watching it very much. I only watched it because Johnny Depp is in it.

It turned out to be very different, very interesting and funny. The plot goes like this: a woman and her daughter travel all over the place, setting up chocolate shops in different palces until the mother gets restless (always traveling with the North Wind) and they move. When they move into a conservative French village, she stirs up a lot of trouble. She opens a chocolaterie during Lent and introduces new ideas to the hidebound old villagers through her chocolate–her archenemy is the Comte of the town, who does everything in his power to make her go away.

I don’t want to ruin it for you, so I’ll stop there, but a lot more happens–you’ll just have to watch it, now won’t you? Johnny Depp, as one of my favorite actors, played a small but interesting part as a “river rat” who becomes involved with Vyenne, the main character.

The verdict:

The movie overall has a great blend of romance, comedy, tragedy, and new beginnings that combine to make a very nice, emotional tale different and deeper than most Hollywood films that are mass-produced. Despite being slightly predictable (what movie isn’t?) it was sweet and had a happy ending without being overly cliched. I give it a handful of stars.

And Johnny Depp is hot in this movie too. How could he not be? I wish he would have played a bigger part.